Champions Wear Yellow, Not Gold

July in Maine has come around again. For most people July is a month of calm relaxation or insane summer fun. It may seem like those two things have nothing in common, yet in truth they go hand in hand. It's a time for warm weather and cool breezes. Of monkeys fighting tiger robots to the death with half wrench, half axe weaponry. Trips to the coast to view the natural beauty or to mock foreigners and their cavespeak.
July starts with a bang and a boom. The bang is the Statue of Liberty getting it on with the Empire State Building. Few believe this coupling happens and fewer still have actually seen it with their own eyes. Oh but it happens. That statue is a right nasty skank. She used to have "relations" with the Eiffel Tower, but it refused to clean itself so she packed up her stuff and moved in with the ESB. What was I... oh yes! The boom is fireworks. Fourth of July you see. It's properly called Independance Day. That name confuses people and they run for cover from the invading aliens, screaming Will Smith's name in a plea for help. So we just call it the Fourth of July now. People think that the Fourth of July was always there, but it wasn't. Just ask any of us Americans. The first Fourth of July happened in 1776 when Abraham Lincoln declared victory over the Russians at the Boston Tea Party. And then Thomas Jefferson wrote a song about a flag, and America was born after 7 years of labor.

Well July for me has meant something else on top of these other things. It has meant the Tour de France. I got caught up in Armstrong fever back in 2004. The fever kept getting worse and became an infection, somehow. I nearly died. But I didn't and now I spend my mornings in July watching 180 men in a bicycle race. It's honestly more exciting than it looks to the casual observor. It just took Lance Armstrong to get the majority of us interested. It's more than just the race itself though, there are so many factors that make the whole event an entertaining spectacle. The coverage on Versus is top notch from the announcers to the camera views. Paul Sherwin and... and the other guy have these delightful British accents which I could listen to all day regardless of what they were babbling on about. It just so happens they babble on about the Tour and what they say is actually interesting. And those sweeping helicopter shots! Hot damn are those things magnificent. Amazing views of the French countryside, old French villages and manors, and the cities themselves are on offer.

Every morning in July that the tour is on I manage to watch as much of it as I can live. I don't generally watch the later showings since it doesn't feel as immediate as the live broadcasts. It's my recent summer tradition and will likely stay a tradition as long as I live. My goal is to one day go see the tour in person. While following the entire tour would be a dream, I'd settle for the last couple days. Maybe one day when I get to be more successful in writing to the point I can do whatever I want I'll be able to follow the whole thing. Write a book about it or do a series of articles. We'll see what time brings, and I've got (presumably) a lot of life left in me to get over there. Until then I'll keep watching and cheering for the race as an organization (but not the French, never the French).